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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27683737">Rats</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dystomatopoeia/pseuds/Dystomatopoeia'>Dystomatopoeia</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Baldur's Gate, baldur's gate 3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Action/Adventure, Blood Drinking, Blood and Injury, Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Claustrophobia, Flashbacks, Forgotten Realms Elements, Grief/Mourning, Half-ogre, Kidnapping, Mild Gore, Multi, POV Astarion, Power Imbalance, Psychological Trauma, References to Canon, Scheming, Self-Harm, Slavery, Some Plot, Survival, Vampires</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 06:34:28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,971</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27683737</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dystomatopoeia/pseuds/Dystomatopoeia</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Real Summary: After his request for blood is rejected by his companions, Astarion takes to the forests to hunt. But the trouble he finds that night will take him down a truly unfortunate path.</p><p>*Real* Summary: Fucking around with first person and diverging from canon. Because what did I get my English degree for? Hint: writing in Astarion's voice of COURSE</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Astarion (Baldur's Gate)/Original Female Character(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>51</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I smelt its blood in the night air – warm and rich as dark rum, and thick with the flavor of life. The strength of its scent was indication enough that the stag bore a wound. From what, I couldn’t say, but of the creature’s weakness I was certain. It could not dart away from me so easily; I even watched as its hind legs caught on fallen branches and jagged rocks. I was not so clumsy as to stumble over them myself. After all, my experience sprinting through dark forests exceeded the stag’s by many, many years.</p><p>If not for my own weakened state, I might have seized it within instants. Long nights – or rather, long days – of crypt-delving and vermin-slaying had left me exhausted. Hunger drove me on, of course, as it always had, but the internal scream of it had become more <em>overwhelming</em> than energizing. And as much as I am loath to act in desperation, I did find myself desperate once again, facing the air open-jawed as if to drink the scent from it.</p><p>The forest floor took a sharp downward slant. I caught the stag as it struggled to navigate; my hand dug into its back with a force and power it had likely never known from a humanoid. Only the shock of this contact must have spurred it on, and I found myself not quite strong enough to maintain a hold, let alone wrestle it to the ground, as I was used to. I made one final lunge at it, but I missed it by an instant, and lost my footing upon landing. The ensuing tumble sent me to the bottom of the hill, with a fresh tear in my sleeve, and several unfortunate impacts’ worth of dirt and rotten leaves over the rest of me.</p><p>I sneered at the retreating stag, cursing that I hadn’t thought to bring my bow. Chasing down the beast emptyhanded should have been so simple. Now I could only watch as it vanished amid the pines. With it gone, I made no haste rising to my knees – still exhausted, and with no further motive to spur me on. I brushed the leaves from the folds of my clothing, and it was then that my nose caught the scent of more than just dirt and forestry. Campfire smoke drifted through the air, and with it a waft roasted meat, a smell I could no longer recall craving, but one that I still found distinct as any. Surely it could not come from my own camp – I had left it far behind, and how impolite would my companions be to deny me a meal, only to cook one for themselves? Downright hypocritical.</p><p>No, this midnight roast belonged to someone else. Curious, I turned for any sign of light among the stagnant branches. No such sign appeared, though just as I stood to wander further, I spotted a cave veiled in branches. It was large enough to enter upright, and the instant I had done so, the smells – and smoke – were immediately magnified. The cave proved to be more like a tunnel, and further down, I passed a makeshift doorway. Its stone threshold was stepped over easily enough; I wondered if this squalid place could honestly pass for a house, but regardless, I entered with no trouble, and found myself in a chamber hung with roots and lit with an open flame. The campfire sat some ten paces forward, puffing smoke into the air, and a human woman crouched before it, her back to me.</p><p>A grin tugged at my mouth. I may yet taste the blood of thinking creatures, I thought, and pressed forward. The woman leaned toward the campfire, heels high off the ground to balance herself as she twisted a skewer above the flame. I pictured crouching behind her, pulling each of her hands tightly to her chest before seizing that uncovered neck between my jaws. I wouldn’t kill her – no, certainly not. The only thing she truly had to fear was burning her skewers while sleeping off a sore throat. Nothing <em>serious</em>.</p><p>Just as I reached for her, footsteps like cracks of thunder broke the silence, and I whirled to face a charging figure, all dark rags and pallid yellow skin and…</p><p>The thing struck me before I could move any further. Dashed against the ground, I ceased to see or even think. All thoughts faded to an aching void.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The first sensation that I could feel again was dirt beneath me – or rather, being dragged over it. Then there were fingers in the pockets of my doublet, snatching and vanishing as quickly as they had arrived. Sharp fibers bit into my wrist, tightly enough to force my eyes open. I could see the light from the fire, though more distantly now, and three heads silhouetted in the glow, two of them small, one of them very large.</p><p>“Damn elves, always resilient.” One of the smaller figures twitched, his voice low and hardly distinct above the din of my own ears. “Your kind never do know when it’s better to just sleep off a head wound, do you?”</p><p>I could feel my other wrist about to be encircled, and thrashed, snapping with fangs bared. The two smaller figures recoiled, but the larger one did not. Its brick-like fist cracked against my face, and I was flattened with enough force to wind me. Smaller hands seized my arms, dragging me further. I felt metal beneath me, and then – the jarring clang of a cage bolted shut.</p><p>“I’m not certain he’s just an elf.” A woman’s voice; I blinked to distinguish her from the darkness of the cave, and found her to be the same woman I had first discovered – dark hair pinned up, an apron over her dirty traveler’s clothes.</p><p>“Doesn’t much matter,” said the man beside her. “He’s another point towards our quota. And wandered in all by himself. Maybe we should start using you as bait, eh?”</p><p>Their conversation paused for a moment, and I shook my head to clear my senses, squinting up at the cage that surrounded me. It was hardly larger than a coffin, and certainly not tall enough to right myself in, but that wouldn’t stop me from reaching for the door….</p><p>Only no such luck. My bound hands had been fastened to the bars above my head, proving entirely immobile. How quickly the semblance of my own agency had been ripped away – it almost made me feel at home.</p><p>“Get back to the fire, will you? Don’t burn my dinner,” the man ordered.</p><p>“Yes, Greeves. Of course.” The woman marched toward the firelight, leaving only two figures. I glared at each of them in turn. Fighting my way to freedom would be impossible for the moment, but persuasion might yet unbind me. I forced myself to spit out the first reasonable words that my aching head could form.</p><p>“What…whatever you’re looking to gain from this, I’m confident that we can come to an-”</p><p>“An agreement? A bargain? No, trespasser, the bargain I’m settling for is you, right there in that cage. No better bargain in this line of work than a slave that catches himself.”</p><p>“A sl-…a <em>what</em>?”</p><p>The man didn’t respond, cossing his leather bracers over a puffed up chest, smirking as he turned to his large companion.</p><p>“Put him over with the others. I’ll be staying at the campfire.”</p><p>As the overgrown figure approached me, and pulled my cage off the ground like so much firewood, I almost laughed at it: the realization that every miserable motif of my miserable un-life was set to repeat itself. They wanted me to face it all again. They – the worm that swam behind my eye, determined to make me a monster, and now this sneering human, determined to make me a slave. Damn it all to the hells. Damn it all.</p><p>“Damn it!” I struggled on instinct, desperate to break the cord on my wrists. I could feel it stretch, and fought for the energy to stretch it further. But just as I tried, the entire cage around me lurched, as the beast carrying me threw it to the ground. I struck the metal floor with enough force to bring sparks before my eyes. With a snort, the figure above me began to stomp away.</p><p>“Wait,” I called, my voice hardly above a groan. “What would it take for you to let me out of here? Name something, gold, anything – they can’t possibly pay you more than I could, were you to free me….”</p><p>My reasoning appeared to be entirely unheard. The brute only muttered a phrase in some low, ugly language that I knew not a word of, and he continued on his way, clutching what I recognized as my own coinpurse in his overgrown paw.</p><p>I no longer cared if fighting was pointless. I kicked the bars with all the force I could summon, and yanked at the cord on my wrists, thrashing to snap it. The cage felt suddenly so tight around me, and the need to escape it so desperate that I began to chew at the cord with as much force as my jaws could summon, drawing blood from my own wrists in the process. Thick as it was, my own frantic resolve would have to wear it through.</p><p>“You’re hurting yourself.”</p><p>I almost failed to hear him over the sound of my own struggles, but stopped to find myself faced with the bright eyes of a tiefling. He was lying across from me in a cage of his own, half-bundled in gray rags, his horns pressed awkwardly to the metal beneath him.</p><p>“Just wait a moment,” he said. “Try to keep quiet. Greeves doesn’t like noise, understand?”</p><p>I didn’t care <em>what</em> this bastard liked, only what pitiful cry he might make were I to crush his throat beneath my teeth. As tempting as it was to say as much, I paused. Even this brief struggle had proven tiring on an empty stomach. I tried to recall my last meal, and it seemed a lifetime ago.</p><p>“That’s better.” The tiefling. “I know you’re probably as scared as I am. They promised me simple work with good pay, and then…well. I just hope I can live to see my family when this is through.”</p><p>I turned my back to him as he babbled on. They always unsettled me – those who so readily fumbled about in attempting to comfort a stranger. The only comfort this fool could bring me was by way of his neck.</p><p>Or perhaps he could at least provide me with a few answers of use.</p><p>“Who is this ‘Greeves,’ and what exactly does he have planned for us?”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>-what were the five phases of grief again? pretty sure astarion went through most of them in this chap<br/>-thank you for all of the love and comments on this work so far, please feel free to tell me what you think or what you hope to see in future chapters!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The tiefling was useful after all. Greeves and his party were nothing more than a common pack of slavers, he explained, and this cave was both their shelter and their link to the underdark – where they would soon be bringing their captures. The tiefling and I were only two of many. A larger cage sat behind us, covered with heavy canvas, but I could still hear the whispers of several voices inside it, all of them feminine.</p><p>“You certainly don’t plan to wait until Greeves hauls us into the underdark to some unknown buyer – do you?” I had to ask, not that I had any sort of hope in this tiefling’s ambition, or his will to survive. He hardly moved in that cage of his. In reply, he only shook his head.</p><p>“Well, if complacency isn’t your first choice, then what?” I pressed.</p><p>“I don’t have any sort of plan. Not yet,” he said. “I just don’t want to get them angry at me. The half-ogre, especially. I saw him kill one of us. Just got mad enough and…in one swing. It was awful.”</p><p>I didn’t speak further, only glared up at the dirt above my head. My hands were numb and my shoulders ached under the consistent strain of my position. I wondered if the slavers had any intent to move me from this place, or if I would be left here for many hours more. Many days, even. The tiefling seemed content to bide his time, so long as he was in no truly immediate danger. But I was far more determined to survive.</p><p>I listened intently for any sign of the slavers’ voices further up the cave. By now, my ears had ceased ringing. I heard no one, but did detect the faint sound of rushing water. Perhaps an underground river was near. The potential threat, distant as it may be, only unsettled me further.</p><p>I had to wonder if <em>he</em> was behind this – Cazador. If his influence extended so far as to manipulate these backwater thugs into the perfect place at the perfect time; if he somehow possessed the stag in the woods for long enough to lead me in their direction. Nothing was strictly impossible, with my former master involved. And he had never wanted me to stray for long. Only fitting then, that I would find myself in a cage after tasting freedom.</p><p>Then again, some chance existed that I was lost to Cazador completely. The mindflayer’s ship had hardly traveled a short distance, and my time aboard it had only been the first segment of a <em>chaotic</em> journey. If my master was, in fact, oblivious to my whereabouts, the relief could only be half-enjoyed; it meant that not a soul – rotten and shriveled or otherwise – would find me here, and I would be escaping this place on my own, or not at all. Surely not with the help of my short-lived companions from the mindflayer ship, who withheld their trust and loyalty until the bitter end. They meant nothing to me, and I understood that the feeling was entirely mutual.</p><p>Approaching footsteps pulled me from my thoughts. Greeves had arrived in our chamber of the cave, flanked by two other men.</p><p>“You tell me what the drow will pay for them,” Greeves said, nudging the man on his right, a taller and heavy-set sort, mostly covered by a brown cloak.</p><p>“Their representative asked for women,” the cloaked man answered. “What do <em>you</em> think they’ll pay?”</p><p>“A slave’s a slave. They’ll find some use for them, surely. All I’m asking is this: will they pay us enough to cover the effort of dragging them through these tunnels, or not?”</p><p>The man in his right hesitated to answer, but the one at his left took a step towards me, squinting through the dim light with dark, aged eyes.</p><p>“The horned one would be almost worthless to them,” he said. “But I’ve heard tales of the drow’s hatred for other elves. They should gladly take this one.” A jab in my direction. “For either a slave, or a sacrifice.”</p><p>The thought of either fate reawoke the dread that had consumed every instant. My mind scrambled for any words that might allow me an escape.</p><p>“Ah, lovely,” said Greeves. “I suppose I should have sent you to speak with them, after all. Clearly a man of wisdom. Take note, Patriff.”</p><p>The cloaked man sighed. “I told you all I knew,” he complained.</p><p>“You’re all sorely mistaken,” I cut in. “My blood is as much drow as it is high-elven. Were you to bring me to them, they would consider it a dire insult. I would demand that you free me now, for your own sake if not for mine.”</p><p>I awaited their response with an eagerness driven by fear. Rarely had bold lies worked in my favor, but they would surely prove effective against such dull bastards as these. More effective than they were against Cazador.</p><p>“Ha!” Brayed Patriff. “Now <em>that</em> I know a few things about. The representative brought plenty of slaves with her – two of them drow.”</p><p>“Interesting. So our capture thinks he’s clever, does he?” Greeves stepped toward me and bent to look me in the eye, slick hair that smelled of cheap oil falling past his gaunt face.</p><p>“You’re lucky we didn’t believe you,” he hissed. “You want to know what happens to the ones we leave behind?” He stood upright again, turning toward the firelight. “Brindr! Oks!”</p><p>In thudded the half-ogre, dragging an axe taller than myself. He heaved its rusted form over our heads, and brought it down on the petrified tiefling in one swing. Blood spray coated the cave wall; I was doused in it also. The cage bars had been cleaved through in the brute’s strike. Now it sat bent and useless upon the ground, its once-living occupant bisected and lifeless within it. I could only stare, knowing that I should have expected no better from these slavers. A familiar bitterness crept over me – one that always followed fear.</p><p>“Good work, Brindr,” said Greeves. He attempted to swipe a few drops of blood from his coat, and failing that, removed it, tossing it to the half-ogre. “Tell the woman to get this washed, won’t you?”</p><p>The half-ogre left the way he came, dragging his bloodied axe on the ground behind his feet.</p><p>“How lucky you are that we caught your lie,” Greeves said, earning a chuckle from the men beside him. “Open your mouth again, and we’ll make you regret it.”</p><p>The men left, marching deeper into the tunnels. I fought my bonds for one fruitless moment before giving in to hunger and seeking the blood that coated my arms and the bars of my cage, drinking whatever I could. It would have to be enough – enough to survive on, until the moment I freed myself from this place.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>-comments are welcome as usual! give me your thoughts on the original characters if you would like. or your thoughts on astarion!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i love listening to melancholy stuff for flashback scenes. my track of choice for introducing riela is here: https://soundcloud.com/forfucksayk/offline</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>As I chewed deeper through the cord that tied my wrists, she appeared in my mind – as if standing above me – Riela of the Emerald Shores. Her skin, pale as the undeath we shared, her hair, the color of dried roses, her dress black and tight around her form, restrictive, as if a reminder of her place beneath the Szarr.</p><p>Her title always carried a bitter irony to it; Cazador had taken her far, far away from those “Emerald Shores,” long before he even found me on that night in Baldur’s Gate. A spawn, a slave, much like myself, Riela had regarded my arrival in Cazador’s domain with a contempt I could not truly fault her for. Still, we had managed to form a bond – little more than acceptance of our mutual misery, but <em>something</em> – in the two centuries I had spent imprisoned with her.</p><p>Among her first words to me were this: “Taste your own blood in your mouth for the hundredth time, and tell me <em>then</em> what desperation means.”</p><p>The honesty in her words could be read as plainly as the lines of poetry across her face, and never did I doubt them. Now, feeling the cords weaken beneath my teeth, feeling the blood spill from my own veins and drip down my throat, I wondered if this was indeed the “hundredth time.” Whether or not it mattered, I was not the man that I was when Riela had spoken those words. Surely Riela knew that I had changed.</p><p>My work on the cord did not relent. If anything, it hastened with her memory, a harsh grin forming on my blood-spattered face as I fought on. She had seen this grin before, on long nights prowling the streets together, days spent locked away in the cellar with only rats to feed us. She had seen it even as Cazador took me by the neck, and turned me to face her, and placed a dagger in my hand….</p><p>The cord snapped with a final bite and twist. My arms were free, and I lunged immediately for the door to my cage. The bolt was locked in place, but the slavers had failed to notice the thieves’ tools I stored inside my boot. I snatched hold of my lockpick and reached through the bars, practically contorting myself to find access. As I began to twist the pick into place, I heard a voice behind me, barely whispering, but enough to make me jump.</p><p>“He has it. Yes, he has it!”</p><p>I whirled to face the source: the covered cage, where a small chorus of voices had begun whispering among themselves. Squinting, I finally noticed a few small holes in the canvas that obscured it, and felt myself watched by a number of eyes.</p><p>“Free us. Us next!” The whispers continued.</p><p>So I was performing for a crowd, was I? A nod in their direction, and I turned to continue my work. The pick dug deeper, working each tumbler into place. I bit my lip until the tap of blood on the cage floor made me stop. The sight of the eviscerated tiefling beside me only urged me to pick the lock with haste.</p><p>I felt another click in the lock’s mechanism. Electrified at the prospect of freedom, I forced my other arm through the bars. If I could wrench the bolt open, this cage would be my prison no more.</p><p>“He’s coming!” A sudden warning, whispered from the cage behind me. “Greeves! And Brindr too!”</p><p>I froze, caught between forces – one that urged me to continue on and break free in time to fight, and another that knew I would be outnumbered, that my best chance at survival would be to lie down and pretend that nothing had changed.</p><p>It was clear to me what mattered: survival. It was always clear, and with the half-ogre involved, I doubted I could fight with any of the success that I craved. I jammed the lockpick back inside my boot and flattened myself in the cage, leaving only my arms above my head, wrists crossed as before. Gods only knew whether the slavers would take note of the broken cord beside my head. I shut my eyes as their footsteps grew near, and hoped I might attract no attention at all.</p><p>“This thing had better work,” declared Greeves. His footsteps passed me by, and seemed to stop in a corner beside the larger cage. The heavy thud of Brindr’s feet had stopped further back.</p><p>“It works?” Grumbled the ogre, as Greeves began to scrape something against the cave wall.</p><p>“We’ll see. Either it will, or I’m getting my twenty gold pieces back. With interest.”</p><p>I risked slitting my eyes for long enough to catch Greeves pressing a small disc of dark metal to the wall. It seemed to brighten for an instant, and then, by magic, the dirt and stone behind it melted and gave way to another chamber entirely.</p><p>“Aha! The underdark awaits.”</p><p>I couldn’t help but stare wide-eyed at the expanse that Greeves had revealed. Slopes of black rock stretched out into the darkness, low-lit by thickets of glowing mushrooms. Far in the distance, I could make out a waterfall, much louder without the wall to muffle it.</p><p>“Greeves?”</p><p>The woman had arrived with the slaver’s coat in hand. Greeves whipped to face her, seeming more annoyed than grateful. He seized a fistful of the offered clothing, but shoved it back in her direction.</p><p>“It’s still wet. What do you expect me to do with it?”</p><p>I had expected cruelty from him, but still found myself surprised as he struck the woman across her cheek. She recoiled a step, but didn’t run. She knew then, that running didn’t work. Not from beasts that chase on instinct.</p><p>“You’re lucky you’re not in there,” Greeves threatened with a point towards the cage. “You can thank your brother for calling in all his favors to make me teach you this business, and not sell you in it. You…what?!”</p><p>His venom turned to confusion, as the woman’s attention was clearly fixed on his hand. Greeves followed her gaze to the disk still pressed to his palm. It was glowing again.</p><p>“What’s going on with it?” He growled, lifting the disc over his head to squint at the texture. With it pointed at the ceiling, an uneasy feeling came over me….</p><p>It was confirmed, as the disc suddenly glowed brighter, and the cave roof came tumbling down on our heads.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>-thought i'd change "rocks fall, everyone dies" to "dirt falls, everyone.....dies??"<br/>-thank you very much to those who have commented and bookmarked! i really look forward to hearing what you think of these new developments</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I was buried once before, on the night I was turned. Not that I was conscious for it; Cazador had taken what life remained in me, and sent his spawn to cast me in a grave. I awoke a day later, beneath the cellar of his estate. By then, I had slowly turned from corpse to vampire, my eyes from black to red, my jaws from harmless to deadly. A string had been tied to my hand, and my first movements rang a bell. No sooner had I awoken than the spawn began to dig me out, and I was reborn through gravesoil as Cazador’s newest puppet.</p><p>The cave’s collapse proved not so much burial as suffocation. Thick layers of dirt plummeted past the bars of my cage and pinned me with a force that threatened to squeeze my lungs flat. The ground beneath me shifted, and the cage tilted on one side, enveloped completely in the earth. I could no longer see the bars, so engulfed as they were. Dirt and bits of rock settled over every inch of me, pressing with relentless weight. I felt the instinct to gasp for breath, but I fought to resist it. Were I to open my gritted jaws, I would only choke.</p><p>Instead, I began to dig around with the lesser-pinned of my hands, trying to carve an opening to the lockpick in my boot. I kicked to loosen myself further, but the dirt surrounding me yielded little.</p><p>Somewhere near – though heavily muffled – I heard a woman’s voice, a word half-formed and quickly followed by some rather dramatic coughing. Then a gurgle from further off, low and inhuman. The half-ogre.</p><p>I squirmed a few inches further, and at last touched the lockpick, relishing its return to my hand. I held the key to freedom from this cage – a pity there was now another force entirely that obstructed me. More dirt settled over both my hand and pick, blocking my way. I worked every muscle in my arm to push past it.</p><p>A few other voices made themselves known, shouting in alarm. I was certain they belonged to the other slaves, but I could no longer recognize their words with the ceiling caved in over us. I considered whether they might also be buried. With their cage covered over by fabric, they wouldn’t be suffocating, at least not just yet. Of course, I didn’t envy them in the slightest; we were all trapped, and I seemed to be the only one with a lockpick.</p><p>The dirt had ceased shifting, but somewhere nearby, the shuffle of hands and feet had begun struggling against it, pushing further, nearer. I felt for the bars, wondering for the first time if picking a buried lock was even remotely possible. Would the dirt simply jam it? The thought twisted my empty stomach with fresh unease, as I reflected on just how completely I might be trapped here.</p><p>The shuffling beside me grew suddenly louder, and a hand shoved itself up against my head, having somehow pushed between the bars and fallen debris. A man’s voice grunted. Greeves.</p><p>Would it have been the woman instead, I might have found restraint. But this slaver had poked his delicious little hand into the wrong enclosure. I thrashed to seize it in my teeth, biting at the joint where thumb fused with palm, chewing until the veins were split wide, and savoring every drop of blood that spurted forth. The taste was mingled with soil, but I had tasted far worse, and the half-suffocated screams of my prey did a great deal to enrich the experience.</p><p>In an act of total panic, the slaver used brute strength to wrench his hand free. A pity for him, that his choice skeletalized a good portion of his hand. I spat the extra flesh from my mouth and snapped in his direction, but he had retreated, albeit still screaming.</p><p>Distantly, I could also detect other voices – the woman’s, the trapped slaves’, and the muffled roar of the half-ogre. The latter seemed to thrash with enough force to shift the ground again, and called out to Greeves amid strings of its own language.</p><p>I fought again to find the lock that might free me. One step at a time, I assured myself, emboldened by the delicious taste of fresh, human blood that still coated my mouth. Such a novelty…if only I had been in a position to properly savor the experience.</p><p>The half-ogre’s roaring intensified, it gave another thrash under the mountain of dirt we were trapped in, and suddenly, the slanted ground beneath me gave way entirely. Crushing pressure turned to no pressure at all. Weightlessness, even. From total darkness, I glimpsed a few instants of dim light, and knew by the chaotic motion of it that we were falling. The impact would come soon, I thought, but then we only <em>continued</em> to fall, and I realized that a quick impact would have been far too merciful for a journey such as this. A journey that had left me with a worm in my skull, a temporary freedom from my master at an unknown cost, and one that he would almost certainly come to snatch away. And was it any freedom at all, if I had spent the last half of it shut in a cage?</p><p>I heard myself hit the ground before truly feeling it, or rather, the noise of my cage smacking stone – a <em>clang</em> that rivaled a blast of explosive powder, and proved enough to deafen me. Had it not, I would have certainly heard the snap of my spine breaking.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>-lol i have so many things to apologize for. like how short this chapter is. and how awful this cliffhanger is. and how i literally just did a cliffhanger for the last chapter. oops<br/>-also on that note, if anyone is willing to beta read,,,<br/>-big thank you again to all the people who have shown interest in this work! i fully plan to continue with longer chapters, yay</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>-first chapter is intended to be a short teaser to gauge interest. i will probably post full-length chapters soon</p></blockquote></div></div>
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